Social conservative split rocks Irish republicanism

Peadar Toibin, formerly of Sinn Fein, now leader of a new socially conservative party

The Republic of Ireland has no electorally credible racial nationalist, or even eurosceptic nationalist party. In 2014 the big story here was Sinn Féin’s success in gaining three MEPs with 19.5% of the vote. This year Ireland’s European parliamentary representation will increase from 11 to 13 MEPs, so Sinn Féin (political arm of the terrorist IRA) will almost certainly retain these three seats.

Craigavon councillor Fergal Lennon is the latest defector from Sinn Fein to the new party

Arguably the roots of this split date back to the late 1960s when the Provisional IRA was formed. This rejected the old-fashioned Marxism of the ‘Official IRA’: instead of waiting and building towards a proletarian revolution, the Provisionals were determined to escalate a brutal terrorist war against the hated Brits.

Yet on the other hand these same Provisionals increasingly identified themselves with Third World ‘liberation movements’, and eventually with the entire gamut of trendy delusions ranging from feminism, through abortion rights, gay marriage, multiracialism and no doubt now ‘transgender’ rights.

For many years Sinn Fein / IRA disguised these leftist/liberal affiliations from their American donors, since most of the latter were old-fashioned nationalists with a romantic attachment to traditional Irish culture, and in most cases devout Roman Catholics.

Now the chickens have come home to roost. Emboldened by a decade of scandals that have undermined church authority, militant left/liberal secularists have openly taken control of Sinn Fein’s agenda.

The new Aontú party is an effort to reconnect Irish republicanism with its traditional roots: it will be interesting to see whether Sinn Fein’s hegemony (that has been consolidated over the past half century) will now be challenged.

There is also a new party called Irexit campaigning for Ireland to leave the European Union, but it’s not yet clear whether this will be officially registered in time to contest this year’s elections. In Ireland (unlike the UK) at least 300 registered members are required before a party is officially recognised to appear on ballot papers.